In plays and other works of literature, the ability to see into the future generally just makes life harder for the person who has it. Anyone lucky enough to catch a glimpse of art that hasn’t happened yet, however, is blessed with a much nicer view.
Salt Lake Acting Company is giving everyone that chance to peek into the future with their free reading of Kathleen Cahill’s “The Persian Quarter,” which will be receiving its world premiere with the company next spring (Cahill’s current SLAC world premiere work, “Charm,” is absolutely fabulous and still has performances left). The reading, which will be held April 26 at 7 p.m. at Salt Lake Acting Company (168 W. 500 N.), will allow audiences to catch the spirit of the play long before its official opening night.
The story of “The Persian Quarter,” for those of you who want a sneak peek of the sneak peek, unfolds with the meeting of two women during in Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis in 1980 - one is an American hostage, and the other is a young Iranian revolutionary student keeping her hostage. Thirty years later, their daughters accidentally meet in an empty classroom at Columbia University during the visit of the Iranian President Ahmadinejad. Both then and now, the play asks why people do what they do, whether there’s any truth not colored by a person’s passions, and whether or not it’s even possible for two people to truly understand each other.
“We are Iran , we are beyond your comprehension,” says Shirin, that Iranian student in 1980. “We are a nation of poets. We think like poets. How can you possibly understand us when you are Table Talk and we are raisins, pomegranates and rose petals?”
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